


The Far Side of the River

by Sineala



Category: Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Religious Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:21:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucius tumbled into the water with his shield above him and the broken bridge-timbers above that, falling about him in pieces. The river's icy chill burned hot in him, like embers on his skin, stabbing harshly at the wound at his collarbone, as fiercely as if the tribesman's spear were still there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Far Side of the River

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carmarthen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/gifts).



> I was writing this story and then Osprey_Archer had a much better idea, so I borrowed that. Thanks, Osprey! She also helped me invent some sins.

Lucius tumbled into the water with his shield above him and the broken bridge-timbers above that, falling about him in pieces. The river's icy chill burned hot in him, like embers on his skin, stabbing harshly at the wound at his collarbone, as fiercely as if the tribesman's spear were still there.

The black waters closed about him, and there was nothing left now. He would have crossed himself but that his fingers could not move from his weapon. _Bless me_ , he thought, the words slow to come to mind, but there was no one to bless him in the dark, in the ice. Would there be provisions enough for the men to put the host in his mouth, when they found him? _I have-- I have sinned. I have-- have I?_

He could not remember his sins. It was hard to think of anything at all except the ice. But the cold was receding now, and in its place lay emptiness. His wounds hardly pained him, and it was easy, so easy to drift away--

Then the world was light and pain again, and his head broke the surface of the water. He could not have said how it happened, but there were hands on his sodden wolf-skin cloak, on his neck, hauling him up. His lungs stung, scraped raw, and when he tried to breathe there was still only water, and he was trapped, he was trapped again--

"Got you," said someone -- Vedrix -- and Lucius lolled his head to stare at him, dazed; his eyes couldn't quite focus. "Hold on to this, sir."

It was a rope. He couldn't grab it. But Vedrix looped it around him, and the line of men standing ever closer to the bank on the far side pulled him slowly toward the shore. Though his lungs screamed for air he didn't dare breathe again until he was free of the water; his head kept sliding under again, for he had no strength to raise it. Green spots wove and danced before his eyes, and then the last pair of hands dragged him ashore, laying him out. Above him he saw Ducenarius Aquila, his mouth firm, grey eyes tense and even paler in a face reddened by the winter cold, and as Lucius doubled over and coughed up a mess of blood and phlegm and river-water the ducenarius' hands dropped upon his wounded shoulder, so heavily that it felt like another blow. 

"Lie still," said Aquila, and Lucius tried in vain to follow the order, to stop convulsing. "It's not your heart's blood, Lucius, you can make it, you must only lie still!" He leaned back to call to one of the men. "Pass the word for Anthonius. No, not you, Hilarion. You come here. You can help me hold--"

The world wobbled out again and back in, and when Lucius blinked, Aquila's hands had been replaced by those of the senior centenarius. His jaw was tight, and he was unsmiling. When Lucius tried to look down he glimpsed Hilarion's pale fingers smeared dark with blood, but he couldn't quite see--

"No, don't move," Hilarion said, all humor gone from his voice.

His sins. He had to confess them. He could not wait for Anthonius; he had to say them now.

It was several tries before he could make his mouth work, and even then the first few words were acrid and burning, ripping at his already-raw throat. "I envied you," he said, hoarsely. "Hilarion." But he was too quiet for either of them to hear, he knew.

Aquila knelt down beside him, concern sharp in his face, like the sting of the winds cutting across the moors. "Whatever it is, Lucius, it can wait. Don't talk. We must stop the bleeding."

"The sin of envy," he said, more urgently, but the words came out wrong. "I envied how you were confident, and how you were b- be- b- beloved of the men and I was not, Hilarion."

Hilarion glanced over at Aquila. "Did you hear him say my name? I thought I heard my name."

"He's mumbling something," said the commander, and then, more sternly: "Quiet."

When Aquila's hands reached out for him, for his face, for his head, to try to still him, he twisted away, and agony ran through him.

"No," said Lucius, louder, his tongue numb against his teeth. The words were yet again malformed. "My sins."

He was understood at last, and now Hilarion summoned up a smile, a half-smile, barely a shadow of his usual grin edging into that narrow face. "There isn't need for that. You aren't going to die just yet. The Votadini who struck you -- it was a near thing, but the blood is slowing. You must lie still and wait for Anthonius. After that you may tell me of my sins as much as you like, is that not what you said?" He smirked a little. "Be still."

_His_ sins? It was not Hilarion's sins that mattered now.

An unkind thought. There, that was yet another thing he ought to confess.

He tried to push up again, out of Hilarion's hands, out of the commander's hands where they were trapping his head, so that he could talk properly, and Hilarion hissed under his breath and redoubled the force. His vision greyed at the edges, and the sound of the world went away with it.

"--going to kill himself if he keeps doing this, Alexios--"

"--well, what do you think we--"

"Anthonius is a Christian, he'll know--"

And then Aquila and Hilarion were still leaning over him, with no sign of the surgeon yet, but there was no pressure except that which was pinning his collarbone, heavily. He felt a little freer for it, even as his breath still came in jagged shards of ice.

"Lucius," said the ducenarius, carefully, as if the words themselves were fragile glass, "if we let you talk, just a little, until Anthonius arrives, will you promise to lie still as you do?"

He gave the smallest nod he could manage, a quiver of his head. "I must confess m-my. My sins, sir. On many occasions I read pagan works of literature instead of-- instead of the Gospels. S-sometimes I th- thought I liked them better."

Aquila lifted an eyebrow. "Your scrolls of the Georgics."

They were ashes in the Sacellum, in a fort he would never set foot in again.

He could not nod properly, but he knew the commander knew. 

"I did not mind when the Wolves touched the black stone. When I served with Gavros we visited the Votadini. I saw their sacrifices and idolatry and said nothing."

"Lucius," Aquila said, almost reproachfully, "that's really nothing to--"

"I diced with Hilarion once and tried to cheat him," Lucius mumbled. "He cheated first, and I told myself it would be fair if I did as well, because he had."

Hilarion's shoulders began to shake; whether with cold or suppressed laughter, he could not say.

"You are practically a saint yourself," said Hilarion, and now he was grinning a true grin. "That is nothing at all, and besides, you may tell your god it was my fault." This was their old joke; Hilarion knew very well it did not work like that, for he had been present for a great number of times that Lucius had spoken blasphemies.

"I feel pr- pr-prideful." His teeth were chattering. "Sometimes I believe myself holier than others, f-for example, because I do not go wenching with the rest of the men."

Hilarion stared blankly at him for several long moments, his mouth working. "Lucius, that's not even--" He blew air between his lips. "Never mind."

Of course Hilarion had not understood _that_.

Then he remembered the heaviest sin, and he knew he had to speak of it. He tried to look at Aquila. "I-- I wished harm on Montanus, sir. I was glad that he died in the fighting, because it meant that you would command us again, and even before that, even before the horse-theft, sir, I still wished it--"

Bile came up in his throat then, and he could not speak. But Aquila's hands, so much warmer than his own, now encircled his wrist, bringing life back to his chilled flesh, and then Aquila leaned close and kissed him on the forehead, very gently.

Lucius had never been easy in his body. Not like Hilarion was. Not like anyone was. People hardly touched him, but now, now it seemed right. Simple. The touch relaxed him, and he could feel himself smiling, he thought.

"Shh," the ducenarius said. "That is enough for your god, isn't it?"

It was then that he knew at last that he would live. _It is enough_ , he tried to say, but he smiled up at his friends, his comrades, and that was enough of an answer for that too, so he left it there, wordless. He knew all was understood, here on the far side of the river.

**Author's Note:**

> Wikipedia tells me that early Christians put the host in the mouth of the dead. I have not fact-checked this, but I went with it anyway.


End file.
